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(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, JUNE 4 - Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan has today said that Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic movement which controls the Gaza Strip, is not a terrorist group. ' 'Hamas has resistance fighters who fight to defend their country. They won the elections," said Erdogan in Konya, in central Turkey. "I told the American leaders... I don't consider Hamas to be a terrorist organisation. I still believe this today. They are defending their country," added the PM, whose statements were then broadcast again by Turkish television. (ANSAmed).

So I suppose if Israel fires thousands of rockets into Turkey yearly like Hamas has done to Israel then Israel would only be defending itself from the Turkish Islamists right?

Why do I doubt the Turkish PM would be saying the same thing then? My how Islamists can justify anything! Hmmm

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Two weeks after delivering a blow to the U.S.-led efforts to strengthen sanctions against Iran by mediating a uranium exchange agreement involving the Islamic Republic and Brazil, Turkey once again has seized the international spotlight in the wake of the deadly clash between Israeli commandos and armed Turkish activists aboard the Gaza-bound flotilla. Turkey’s central role in both developments is no coincidence. It is a reflection of the current Turkish government’s determined efforts to shed the secular legacy of its predecessors, to consolidate power at home, and to align the country with the Islamic world – which means a collision course with America and, especially, with Israel.

The flotilla ship, the Mavi Marmara, originated from the Turkish port, Antalya and the majority of those killed and wounded in the confrontation with Israeli commandos were Turkish citizens. While Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warns Israel “not to test its patience,” Turkey is leading the international chorus of denunciations against the Jewish state. While it may appear as if the latest controversy is one more bloody chapter in the long saga of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the deadly confrontation in the Mediterranean is in reality more about Turkey’s destiny and its upcoming and planned confrontation with Israel.

The ruling party in Turkey, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), seems to be driven by two main factors. On the eve of the upcoming national elections, the AKP is desperate to stave off defeat at the hands of the surging opposition. Under such circumstances, the AKP seeks to exploit people’s sense of patriotism and religious solidarity with Muslim Palestinians by forcing a confrontation with Israel. However, it would be wrong to attribute the behavior of the AKP government to Machiavellian instincts alone. The religious and political forces behind the AKP, long suppressed and dormant in republican and secular Turkey, believe in the idea of a transcendent Islamic identity and reject the concept of a secular nation state founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The objective of AKP Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to do away with Turkey’s republican system. The actions of his administration have eroded Turkey’s standing with the West and now, with the flotilla incident, a fundamental shift has transpired in Turkish foreign policy. This shift did not occur overnight. In retrospect, the AKP’s refusal to grant passage to U.S. troops on the eve of the Iraq War in 2003 was the opening act of the distancing between Ankara and Washington. The result of the Turkish denial of invasion routes from the north, and hence, the forced concentration of U.S. military operations in the Shia-populated south, no doubt contributed to the rise of the insurgency in the Sunni Triangle and increased casualties. In 2005, Turkey itself became the victim of the anarchy in Iraq as the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) expanded its base in Iraqi Kurdistan and launched deadly attacks on Turkish targets. Ankara threatened Washington with the invasion of northern Iraq. Loath to wreck its relations with the long-standing ally, the U.S. accommodated the Turkish demand by supplying it with satellite intelligence and leaning heavily on the Kurdish authorities in the region to crack down on PKK. US-Turkish relations now seemed cordial on the surface. But the goodwill between the two nations evaporated rather quickly. A public survey in 2007 showed, for instance, that only nine percent of the Turks had favorable views toward the United States.

There is a proverb in Turkish: When you cannot beat the donkey, punch the saddle. It would be tempting to surmise that since Erdogan lacks the resources and capacity to pick a fight with the United States, Israel became the next obvious target. But the situation is more complicated. Unlike Islamic Iran, where Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini distinguished America and Israel as, respectively, the Great and Little Satan for decades, Turkey maintained a solid military alliance with Israel. Turning the “Little Satan” into an enemy in the Turkish public eye was no small feat. For years, the Israelis had been actively involved in the upgrading of Turkish fighter planes and weaponry. The two countries did not just share military technology; they had also shared common enemies. Just as Syria posed a threat to Israeli national security, the government of Hafez Assad laid claims to Turkish territories and harbored PKK leaders in its territories. Oriented toward the West, Turkey’s relations with other Arab countries were lukewarm at best. After all, most Turks never forgot what they regarded as the Arab betrayal of Ottoman Turkey during the First World War when many Arabs sided against the Turks and their German patrons and fought for the British in what they saw as a war of independence against Turkish domination.

The Erdogan government viewed repairing relations with the Arab world as essential to its domestic as well as global agenda. The key figure in the tectonic shift was the architect of the new Turkish foreign policy, Ahmet Davutoglu, who inaugurated a policy called “zero problems with neighbors.” On the surface, it looked as if Davutoglu was the faithful follower of Ataturk’s dictum – “Peace at Home, Peace in the World.” But having been brought up in a religious household and having been a product of the Islamic education system, Davutoglu’s intentions widely differed from those of the founder of the secular state. By establishing warm relations with their country’s autocratic neighbors to the East, the new Turkish government had, in fact, begun quietly steering Turkey away from the West. All along, the AKP leadership insisted on its strong desire to enter the European Union. But behind the scenes, both the European political elite and the Turkish leadership shared a similar objective: to keep Turkey away from Europe and, as the AKP hoped, to integrate Turkey with the rest of the Islamic community of nations. This way, the Europeans would be free, despite their public statements, from a secret fear – an EU with millions of Turks. In its turn, the AKP would get an eastward looking Turkey with autocratic tendencies and Islamist orientation. Bashing and isolating Israel was an integral part of the strategy that accompanied epic changes in Turkish politics.

To accomplish its objectives with regard to Israel, the Erdogan government took an unusual route. Abandoning the long-standing tradition of non-interference in the Mideast conflict, in 2006, Ankara took the initiative to mediate peace between Israel and Syria. As the negotiations went forward, the Israelis began to realize that the so-called mediation was in fact a cover by the Turkish Islamists to engage in deeper contact with Israeli enemies without provoking concern in the mass Turkish domestic public or in the West. How else could the leader of a secular republic and NATO ally justify shaking hands with the representative of Hamas? With the eruption of war in Gaza in 2008, the Erdogan government openly sided with Israel’s enemies by issuing severe criticism of Israel.

During this period, anti-Israel hysteria began to grip Turkish society. The Turks began boycotting Israeli goods en masse. In Ankara, the Israeli basketball team was run off the court by mobs shouting “Allah Akbar.”

Israeli-Turkish hostility escalated further after the shocking confrontation between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Shimon Peres at Davos where the Turkish leader called the Nobel Peace Prize winner a “murderer.” In the ensuing months, a Turkish soap-opera TV series portrayed Israelis as bloodthirsty child-killers and lionized a fictionalfilmsecret agent who shoots and kills a treacherous-looking Israeli ambassador who is engaged in trading body-parts – classic anti-Semitic themes.

The recent incident in the Mediterranean has now greatly escalated tensions between Turkey and Israel. But the progression of events suggests something far more sinister and disturbing with regard to Turkey’s trajectory as a nation. In 1923, when Ataturk established the republic, he repudiated the expansionist ambitions of the Ottoman Empire in favor a peaceful, inward-looking nation state. Having seen his share of dreadful fighting, Ataturk did not wish his nation to become embroiled in territorial conflicts with its neighbors. To accomplish that task, he enacted reforms in politics and society that sought to make Turkey more like France rather than Egypt.

Ataturk’s philosophy of governance turned out to be a spectacular success. Since 1923, with the exception of the Cyprus invasion in 1974, Turkey has successfully managed to avoid being drawn into conflicts and thus saved the lives of millions of its citizens from the murderous currents of the 20th century. Turkey’s success in foreign policy did not just emanate from its peace-loving Kemalist philosophy, but was owed to the wise investment of its republican leadership in the alliance with the West, specifically with the United States. Without the support of Washington and its alliance with NATO, it is doubtful that Turkey would have succeeded in fending off pressures from the USSR to the north and Syria to the southeast. Moreover, its strong ties with the West also enabled Turkey to build a modern military that served as a potent deterrent against aggression. The Erdogan government clearly views this policy as the reduction of Turkey’s status as a global player and has decided to do away with it and replace it with a more aggressive, externally focused policy.

Even the Ottoman Empire, which the AKP government is clearly seeking to emulate, had turned westward after its defeats in the 18th century — long before Ataturk’s radical push for cultural reformation. It should be noted that much of the Tanzimat reforms that brought changes to the Ottoman socio-political infrastructure were inspired by the imperial envoys’ observations in the capitals of Europe. During the Crimean War of 1853-56, the Turks fought side by side with the British and French soldiers against the Russian armies. Moreover, the goodwill between the Turks and the Jews dates back to 1492 when Sultan Bayezid II welcomed the Jewish refugees fleeing the persecution of King Ferdinand of Spain. According to renowned historian of Islam, Bernard Lewis, “the Jews were not just permitted to settle in the Ottoman lands, but were encouraged, assisted and sometimes even compelled.” The Ottoman leadership viewed the Jews as an industrious group whose economic success would bring generous revenues to the state treasury, and treated them with courtesy.

Erdogan’s brand of Islamism and anti-Semitism is not entirely new or original. It was always there within certain elements of the population. But coupled with an ideological zeal and thirst for power, it now threatens to undo most of the accomplishments of the Turkish republic. Erdogan and those around him do not wear turbans or mullah-style robes, but the illusion of a golden Islamic past under the first four caliphs in the 8th century has been drilled into them at the madrases they attended when they were young. Even more powerful than the ideological sympathy for Islamic solidarity is Erdogan’s desire to retain internal political power at all cost. He is an Islamist, but the most important feature distinguishing Erdogan from all previous heads of the Turkish republic is his drive to dismantle all checks and balances to his power. Erdogan’s increasing assault on the top leaders of the military that have long been viewed as the guardians of the Kemalist democracy, together with his “reforms” of the court system and of the constitution, has served the aim of keeping the AKP in power long enough to change the character of the Turkish state. In that sense, Erdogan’s struggle is mostly a domestic one – at this moment, at least.

In recent weeks, Erdogan has been especially alarmed by the rise of an opposition leader in the person of Kemal Kilicdaroglu. In the aftermath of the resignation of the disgraced leader of the Republican People’s Party, Deniz Baykal, who was videotaped having sex with one of his political aides, Kilicdaroglu has emerged as a promising leader and the new face of the Kemalist opposition. Affectionately called “The Turkish Gandhi” by the Turkish people, Kilicdaroglu inspires them with qualities rare for a Turkish politician. He is competent, humble and not corrupt. In the last congress of the party, just prior to the flotilla incident, Kilicdaroglu vowed to defeat the AKP in the upcoming national elections and form the next government. In the face of a serious internal political challenge, Erdogan believes he has found an easy formula of drumming up popularity at home by provoking Israel.

There is, however, a price to be paid for the sinister methods by which Erdogan has sought to manipulate pubic opinion....

Turkey remains a prime transit route for Southwest Asian heroin into Western Europe. International trafficking organizations that operate within the country, from Ankara to Istanbul and beyond, excel at evading narcotics blockades and interdicts. With all the focus on Turks sailing towards the Hamas seas, defying Israel’s determined effort to bar delivery of military weapons and material to the terrorist government that runs Gaza, one wonders how genteel Turkey’s own internal borders have been. Does her treatment of religious and ethnic minorities model Western humanitarian values? Consider Turkey’s treatment of her Armenian, Catholic, and Kurdish minorities.

Throughout the week, Israel has acknowledged and publicly regretted the loss of human life due to the flotilla incident, even as Israel has explained why she must continue blockading Gaza – namely, because recent experience has evidenced again and again that Hamas supporters will not stop trying to ship rockets, grenades, and anti-tank missiles to Israel’s bordering enemies to launch terror assaults against Jewish civilian communities. Meanwhile, Turkey still denies the Armenian Genocide ever happened.

As for the country’s Catholics, Bishop Luigi Padovese, a Roman Catholic bishop, was stabbed to death in Turkey on Thursday shortly before he was scheduled to depart for nearby Cyprus to meet with Pope Benedict XVI. Three years ago, three missionaries’ throats were cut out in central Turkey. Their deaths were meant to send a message. The men were disemboweled, and “their intestines sliced up in front of their eyes. They were emasculated and watched as those body parts were destroyed…Fingers were chopped off…Noses and mouths and anuses were sliced open.” One was stabbed 156 times, another 99 times, and their “throats were sliced from ear to ear,” according to International Christian Concern, an American organization based in Washington, D.C. There is no record of sorrow from Rachel Corrie backers or the IHH.

Turkey killed approximately 25,000 Kurds in the mid-1990s, destroying some 3,000 Kurdish villages during the effort to repress Kurdish nationalism and producing more than 2,000,000 Kurdish refugees. According to Minority Rights Group International, in a report funded by the European Union, as many as 40% of Kurdish women in Turkey are illiterate and nearly half the children of Kurdish refugees receive no education. In addition, the government obstructs Armenian and Greek minorities’ school educational efforts. The Turkish war against the Kurds is so visceral that it threatened Turkey’s willingness to join with American troops against Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda in neighboring Iraq. In an official EU 2006 “Progress Report” on Turkey’s fitness for acceptance in the European Union....

As the crisis over a deadly Israeli commando raid on a vessel carrying Turkish activists continued to command the attention of top officials in Washington, Jerusalem, and Istanbul, Namik Tan, the Turkish ambassador to the United States, called Friday for engaging Hamas in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But in an unfortunate turn of phrase, Tan twice said Friday that the militant Palestinian group, which the United States and Europe have designated a terrorist organization, is a necessary and important part of the "final solution" to the conflict.

"For a final solution, you cannot ignore Hamas. That's what we are saying," said Ambassador Namik Tan. "This is not the first time that we are trying to bring this into the discussion. We have told this to the Israelis, to our American friends, to our international interlocutors, everyone. How could you imagine a final solution without Hamas?"

Tan's choice of words aside, he was calling for Hamas to be included in final-status negotiations -- a prospect many Israelis would find even more objectionable than his language. The U.S. position is that Hamas must recognize Israel's right to exist, respect international agreements, and reject violence before it can be considered a legitimate player.

The ambassador's comments highlighted the yawning gap between the positions of the Turkish government and that of the American and Israeli administrations, as tensions linger following this week's Gaza flotilla incident.

Only yesterday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogansaid, "I do not think that Hamas is a terrorist organization. I said the same thing to the United States. I am still of the same opinion. They are Palestinians in resistance, fighting for their own land."

As the Obama administration continues to try to calm the situation and contain emotions following the Gaza flotilla incident, the Turkish government is doing exactly the opposite, raising the volume of its public calls for actions by both Washington and Jerusalem.

At his embassy Friday afternoon, Tan railed against Israel, made broad threats about the Turkish-Israel relationship, and professed deep disappointment with the Obama administration and its handling of the crisis.

"Israel is about to lose a friend ... This is going to be a historical mistake," he said, calling on Israel to make a public apology if its wishes to keep its ties with Turkey. "The future of our relationship will be determined by Israel's action."

Calling the Israelis "criminals," he reiterated Turkey's call for an international investigation. "It's all criminal ... Can you imagine a criminal investigating its own wrongdoing?"

The Obama administration has made clear it supports Israel conducting its own investigation, albeit with some unspecified international participation. "Can Israel, as a vibrant democracy, with strong institutions of government, conduct a fair, credible, transparent investigation?" State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Thursday. "The answer is yes. It is fully capable of doing that."

President Obama spoke with Erdogan by phone and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a two-and-a-half hour face-to-face meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister AhmetDavutoglu on Tuesday. But while the two long interactions were helpful in getting Israel to release Turkish citizens, they didn't produce any agreement on the overall issue, said Tan.

"There is no word of condemnation nowhere, at all levels. So we are disappointed," Tan said. "We want to encourage the United States to take certain decisions in that regard."....

Obama and Clinton refused to condemn or acknowledge the Armenian genocide

The ability of the all-too-standard "insanity" defense to explain away this attack is getting weaker all the time. "Funeral of Mgr. Padovese. Murderer, 'I killed the great Satan!'," by Geries Othman for Asia News, June 7:

Iskenderun (AsiaNews) - Today at 4pm local time the funeral will take place of Msgr. Padovese, killed by his driver, Murat Altun, strangely "crazed" last June 3. Meanwhile, new details have emerged on the dynamics and motives of the killing that has prostrated the Turkish Church.

The funeral ceremony will be held in the Church of the Annunciation, with the participation of the apostolic nuncio, Mgr. Antonio Lucibello, the Latin bishops of Istanbul and Izmir, the Armenian Catholic Bishop of Istanbul, as well as the priests in Turkey and representatives of international embassies.

There will also be a delegate of the Conference of Bishops of Europe present. The presence of bishops from other countries, particularly Italy, are not expected: After the funeral, in Iskenderun, the body of Mgr. Padovese will be brought to Milan, Italy, where he will receive other funeral. The funeral in Italy is likely to take place on Monday, June 14. The delay is due to the fact that the Italian courts have asked to do an autopsy on the body of the martyred bishop.

As the days pass, new details emerge on the story of murder and the alleged "insanity" of the assassin.

The doctors who performed the autopsy reveal that Mgr. Padovese had knife wounds all over his body, but especially in the heart (at least 8). His head was almost completely detached from his neck, attached to his body by only the skin of the back of the neck.

Even the dynamics of the killing is clearer: the Bishop was stabbed in his house. He had the strength to go out the door of the house, bleeding and crying for help and there he was killed. Perhaps only when he fell to the ground, was his head cut off.

Witnesses said they heard the bishop cry out for help. But more importantly, is that they heard screams of Murat immediately after the murder. According to these sources, he climbed on the roof of the house shouted: "I killed the great Satan! Allah Akbar! ".

This call coincides perfectly with the idea of beheading, making sense that it is like a ritual sacrifice against evil. This correlates with the murders of ultranationalist groups and Islamic fundamentalists who apparently want to eliminate Christians from Turkey.

Moreover, according to a Turkish newspaper, Milliyet on June 4, the murderer had told police that he his actions were the result of a " divine revelation."...

Muhammad had one of those, too, interestingly: "Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks..." (Qur'an 47:4). Does Muhammad get an insanity defense?

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Israel's envoy to the United States slammed Ankara’s outreach to terrorist groups Friday. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted earlier that day as saying Hamas is not a terrorist organization. “Turkey has embraced the leaders of Iran and Hamas, all of whom called for Israel’s destruction,” Ambassador Michael Oren declared.

“Our policy has not changed but Turkey’s policy has changed, very much, over the last few years,” he said. “Under a different government with an Islamic orientation, Turkey has turned away from the West.” But Oren, speaking on a conference call organized by The Israel Project, held out hope for reconciliation. “We certainly do not have any desire in any further deterioration in our relations with the Turks,” he said. “It’s an important Middle Eastern power. It has been a friend in the past.”

Erdogan on Friday declared at a rally that Hamas is not a terrorist organization. “You are always talking about democracy. You’ll never let Hamas rule. What kind of democracy is this?” he said, apparently addressing the Israeli leadership. “I do not think that Hamas is a terrorist organization,” Erdogan was quoted as saying. “They are Palestinians in resistance, fighting for their own land.” The Turkish leader echoed Tuesday’s speech, calling Israel’s boarding of the Gaza flotilla “a massacre.”

In his address Friday, he said the Ten Commandments should have deterred the soldiers from killing the nine men who died onboard the Mavi Marmara. “If you do not understand it in Turkish, I will say it in English: You shall not kill,” he reportedly said – repeating the phrase in Hebrew. “They even slaughtered 19-year-old Furkan. They did not even care for the babies in the cradle,” Erdogan said.

Nineteen-year-old Furkan Dogan, a Turkish-American was the youngest of the nine activists killed in the raid. His funeral Friday in his family’s hometown in Kayseri in central Turkey drew 10,000 people, some chanting, “Go to Hell, Israel.” His parents were proud. “Neither I nor his mother or brother have any grief,” his father, Ahmet Dogan, told The Associated Press as he arranged flowers on his son’s coffin before prayers started. “We believe he became a martyr and God accepts martyrs to paradise.”

In his speech, Erdogan also slammed Turkish media reports that were critical of his Justice and Development Party’s support of Hamas, saying the “columnists” had a slanted view of the events. Earlier on Friday, Turkey’s deputy prime minister said his country would work to reduce its military and economic cooperation with Israel. Existing contracts would be reviewed and reworked or canceled, he said.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

As Turkey gallops toward Sharia, it betrays its former ally Israel. "Oren: Turkey has embraced the leaders of Iran and Hamas," by Hilary Leila Krieger for the Jerusalem Post, June 6 (thanks to all who sent this in):

WASHINGTON - Israel envoy criticized Ankara's outreach to terrorist groups Friday, the same day that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying Hamas is not a terrorist organization.

"Turkey has embraced the leaders of Iran and Hamas, all of whom called for Israel's destruction," Ambassador Michael Oren declared.

"Our policy has not changed but Turkey's policy has changed, very much, over the last few years," he said. "Under a different government with an Islamic orientation, Turkey has turned away from the West."

But Oren, speaking on a conference call organized by The Israel Project, held out hope for reconciliation.

"We certainly do not have any desire in any further deterioration in our relations with the Turks," he said. "It's an important Middle Eastern power. It has been a friend in the past."

Erdogan on Friday declared at a rally that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, but a resistance movement, according to the Istanbul-based daily Hürriyet.

Erdogan said that Hamas, the legitimate winner of the Palestinian elections, was fighting for its land.

"You are always talking about democracy. You'll never let Hamas rule. What kind of democracy is this?" he said, apparently addressing the Israeli leadership.

"I do not think that Hamas is a terrorist organization," Erdogan was quoted as saying. "They are Palestinians in resistance, fighting for their own land."...

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

As typical Islamist-leftist theater to delegitimize Israel, late May's Turkish-sponsored "Free Gaza" flotilla was tediously repetitious. As an illustration that Israelis don't understand the kind of war they now must fight, the outcome was drearily predictable. But as a statement of Turkey's policies and an augur of the Islamist movement's future, it bristled with novelty and significance.

Best of friends? Erdoğan (left) with Ahmadinejad.

Some background: after some 150 years of faltering efforts at modernization, the Ottoman Empire finally collapsed in 1923, replaced by the dynamic, Western-oriented Republic of Turkey founded and dominated by a former Ottoman general, Kemal Atatürk. Over the next fifteen years, until his death in 1938, Atatürk imposed a Westernization program so stringent that at one point he suggested replacing rugs in mosques with church-like pews. Although Turkey is nearly 100 percent Muslim, he insisted on a purely secular state.

Atatürk never won the entire Turkish population to his vision and, with time, his laic republic increasingly had to accommodate pious Muslim sentiments. Yet Atatürk's order persisted into the 1990s, guarded over by the military officer corps, which made it a priority to keep his memory alive and secularism entrenched.

Islamists first acquired parliamentary representation in the early 1970s when their leader, Necmettin Erbakan, already served three times as his country's deputy prime minister. As mainstream Turkish political parties frittered away their legitimacy through a disgraceful mix of egoism and corruption, Erbakan went on to become prime minister for a year, 1996-97, until the military asserted itself and threw him out.

Some of Erbakan's more agile and ambitious lieutenants, led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in August 2001 formed a new Islamist political party, the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi or AKP. Just over a year later, it won a resounding 34 percent plurality of votes and, due to the vagaries of Turkish electoral regulations, dominated parliament with 66 percent of the seats.

Foreign policy, in the hands of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who aspires for Turkey to regain its former leadership of the Middle East, over-reached even more blatantly. Ankara not only adopted a more belligerent approach to Cyprus but recklessly inserted itself in such sensitive topics as the Iranian nuclear buildup and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Most surprising of all has been its backing for IHH, a domestic Turkish "charity" with documented ties to Al-Qaeda.

If Ankara's irresponsible behavior has worrisome implications for the Middle East and Islam, it also has a mitigating aspect. Turks have been at the forefront of developing what I call Islamism 2.0, the popular, legitimate, and non-violent version of what Ayatollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden tried to achieve forcefully via Islamism 1.0. I have predicted that Erdoğan's insidious form of Islamism "may threaten civilized life even more than does 1.0's brutality."

Fethullah Gülen disapproves.

But his abandonment of earlier modesty and caution suggests that Islamists cannot help themselves, that the thuggishness inherent to Islamism must eventually emerge, that the 2.0 variant must revert to its 1.0 origins. As Martin Kramer posits, "the further Islamists are from power, the more restrained they are, as well as the reverse." This means it might be the case that Islamism presents a less formidable opponent, and for two reasons.

First, Turkey hosts the most sophisticated Islamist movement in the world, one that includes not just the AKP but the Fethullah Gülen mass movement, the Adnan Oktar propaganda machine, and more. AKP's new bellicosity has caused dissension; Gülen, for example, publicly condemned the "Free Gaza" farce, suggesting a debilitating internal battle over tactics could take place....

Following the bloody clash between Islamist activists and the Israeli army aboard the Mavi Marmara, the voice that has defined Turkey's position for the world media has been that of PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Some voices in Turkey, however, have questioned their own government's role in the events leading up to the Mavi Marmara events, and have asked whether the climate that has resulted from the clash is in Turkey's best interest.

Following are excerpts from two articles in the English-language edition of the Turkish daily Hurriyet:[1]

Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has reportedly invited senior Hizbullah terrorist Hassan Nasrallah to Ankara. However, Nasrallah fears the IDF will assassinate him if he emerges from the hiding places in Lebanon he hs been in since the Second Lebanon War. Iran may therefore provide security for Nasrallah, Kuwaiti paper Al-Siyasa reported Thursday.

Not only is Erdogan to meet Nasrallah, but he is apparently to do so in accordance with advice from Hamas's leader, Khaled Mashaal. Mashaal recently told Erdogan that a meeting with Nasrallah would increase his popularity in the Arab street, Al-Siyasa claimed.

Nasrallah is reported to be pleased with the invitation. However, while he hopes to respond to Erdogan's invitation in the affirmative, the Hizbullah chief apparently fears that a trip to Ankara could give Israel an opportunity to assassinate him.

In order to safely visit Turkey, Nasrallah will receive aid from Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Both Iran and Hizbullah will ask Turkey to allow armed Revolutionary Guard soldiers onto Turkish territory in order to provide security.

Turkey has grown increasingly hostile to Israel under Erdogan's rule. Erdogan harshly criticized Israel following the early 2009 Cast Lead counter-terror offensive, and soon afterward canceled joint Turkish-Israeli military exercises while conducting joint exercises with Syria. A series on Turkish television depicted Israeli soldiers kidnapping babies and murdering innocent Arab children in cold blood.

In March 2010, Erdogan told Arab media that sites such as the Temple Mount and the Tomb of the Patriarchs had never been Jewish, and said PA Arab demands were “top priority” for his government....

In the wake of the controversy over the Turkish charity Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH), a principle sponsor of the Gaza aid flotilla, Turkish jihadists fighting alongside the Pakistani Taliban in Waziristan have now weighed in with their own perspective. On June 7, the "Taifatul Mansura" Turkish-speaking foreign fighter contingent issued a communique acknowledging that IHH has promoted itself as a channel to provide financing and recruits to frontline mujahideen fighters in Chechnya and Afghanistan. However, the group thereupon accused IHH of misappropriating those resources and instead serving as a tool of Turkish intelligence agencies. According to "Taifatul Mansura", the IHH "was sincere at the beginning [but] was later used by the MIT (National Intelligence Organization) and the Psychological Warfare Department of Turkish General Staff in order to prevent the emergence of a mujahideen movement that could pose a threat to Turkish government. Both Chechen mujahideen and Turkish mujahideen who have taken part in operations in the Afghanistan Emirate are fully aware of the activities and scheming of this organization. None of the donations collected by this organization and advertised as if they had been delivered to the mujahideen were actually received by the mujahideen... We, the Taifatul Mansura Organization in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, argue that this organization is only a burden to the mujahideen.” Taifatul Mansura also accused IHH of sparking quarrels and infighting amongst various mujahideen commanders.

WABA,
dont worry, EU would never admit turkey anyway, whether it was erdogan or some other guy, this would never change...

my guess is (you will see that) turkey will cool down this rhetoric; there will be talks, lots of talks...etc. but no action other than some diplomatic moves. erdogan will speak here or there, but thats it...

On the other hand, it may be a mistake to try to bash all turks (and making all of them as your enemies) with offending them.... I would understand if you discredit erdogan, but what is the point of bringing Armenian issue,...etc.? 99% of Turks agree with erdogan on armenian issue but I think less than 25% agrees with him on his support for IHH. if you go after other big problems from the history, that wont help; it would just increase hatred between people of both countries......

Quote:

Originally Posted by WABA

, I think Turkey has shot itself in the foot for membership of the E.U. as long as Erdogan and his Party are in Government.

Turkey does not have many 'big buddies' on its side for full membership of the E.U. it will have even less now.

Erdogan may have gained credence in the Arab world to flatter his pathetic ego, but to the West he has become just another fundamentalist fruit cake.

WABA,
dont worry, EU would never admit turkey anyway, whether it was erdogan or some other guy, this would never change...

my guess is (you will see that) turkey will cool down this rhetoric; there will be talks, lots of talks...etc. but no action other than some diplomatic moves. erdogan will speak here or there, but thats it...

On the other hand, it may be a mistake to try to bash all turks (and making all of them as your enemies) with offending them.... I would understand if you discredit erdogan, but what is the point of bringing Armenian issue,...etc.? 99% of Turks agree with erdogan on armenian issue but I think less than 25% agrees with him on his support for IHH. if you go after other big problems from the history, that wont help; it would just increase hatred between people of both countries......

I think that the comparison is being made to tell your PM to mind his own business when it comes to Israel. Most Jews in Isreal, regardless of their political stripe, supports the blockade and views it essential to their survival.

Turkey was once one of the nations of the world closest to Israel. But with the Erdogan regime working hard to destroy Turkish secularism and reimpose Sharia, that relationship had to end. "Turkey to cut 'all ties' with Israel," from PressTV, June 17:

After an Israeli attack on a Gaza-bound flotilla that left nine Turkish citizens dead, Ankara has introduced a roadmap to "completely" cut its ties with Israel.
After Israel failed to apologize or pay compensations for the killing of the Turkish citizens in its attack on the Mavi Marmara on May 31, Turkish Defense Industry Implementation Committee (SSIK) reviewed the country's military agreements and joint projects with Israel on Thursday.

The SSIK held a meeting chaired by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday and decided to shelve 16 military agreements with Israel, including a $757 million plane and tank modernization project and a missile project worth over $1.5 billion.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul had earlier announced that a roadmap was to be prepared on the issue of sanctions against Israel.

"The roadmap details a process through which Turkey will completely cut its ties with Israel" in several stages, Turkey's Today's Zaman reported on Thursday.

According to the roadmap, the first step would be that Turkey's ambassador to Tel Aviv, who had been previously recalled, will not be sent back unless Israel sends a member to a UN investigatory commission that aims to look into the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

Furthermore, the roadmap requires all military training and cooperation with Israel to be halted and states that an internal Israeli inquiry into the attack will in no way be recognized by Turkey....

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

A Diyarbakır court has dropped the charges against eight people from a family who were planning to kill a girl in the name of honor, ruling that they cannot be sentenced for thoughts that did not turn into action.

According to the Sabah daily, the men of the family had planned to call the girl in question, Kadriye, who ran away with her boyfriend, telling her that they had forgiven her. Then they were going to have her 14-year-old brother kill her. The plan was uncovered when Kadriye’s mother, 55-year-old Fatma Ç., notified a gendarme in a village in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır about the plan.

Criminal charges were brought against the eight men -- two uncles, three brothers and three other family members -- for planning to murder Kadriye in the name of honor. The mother was the plaintiff, while Kadriye was listed as the victim in the indictment prepared by a public prosecutor. In the trial, the three brothers said they did not plot to kill their sister, and the mother recanted her statement. “I asked for help to find my daughter, but I didn’t file a complaint about a plan to kill her,” she said during the trial. While noting that Kadriye could not be found despite all efforts and her testimony could not be taken, the court dropped the charges against the suspects, stating that “even though the suspects decided to kill Kadriye in the name of honor, the decision was only in the thought phase. No one can be charged with a crime for thoughts that do not turn into actions.”

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Many in the international community, including mainstream media outlets, have labeled Turkey's reaction to Israel's interception of a so-called "aid" flotilla to the Gaza Strip a few weeks ago as exaggerated. The latest news out of Turkey reveals that the criticism against Israel is also highly hypocritical.

Turkish Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted Israel over the deaths of nine activists aboard one of the flotilla ships after they attacked the Israeli boarding party. He accused Israel of crimes against humanity, and has led the international charge for an investigation and sanctions against the Jewish state. Erdogan's government has decided to downgrade relations with Israel over the incident.

Since the flotilla raid, Turkey has engaged in its own "war on terror" with little or no attention from the international community, and certainly no calls for independent commissions of inquiry.

On the same day as the flotilla raid, Kurdish rebels attacked a Turkish naval base, killing 12 soldiers. Last week, Erdogan's government responded with air strikes on Kurdish positions in northern Iraq that killed 120 people, including a 7-year-old girl.

There were no condemnations of Turkey for using "disproportionate" force, and no UN Security Council meetings regarding the latest flare-up of a 26-year conflict that has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people.

Some 30 million Kurds live in adjoining portions of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Together, these areas make up Kurdistan, the ancient homeland of the Kurdish people, a distinct ethnic group without a country of their own. For decades, Turkey has oppressed its Kurdish minority of 14 million people by forbidding the use of the Kurdish language and other symbols of national identity in state schools and government institutions. A Kurdish parliamentarian, Layla Zana, was expelled from parliament in 1994 and imprisoned a year later for daring to utter a single sentence in Kurdish from the podium.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s self-righteous proclamations in defense of the Palestinian Islamist terrorist group Hamas — (i.e. “Hamas is not a terrorist group,” “Hamas are resistance fighters who are struggling to defend their land, and they have won an election,” etc.) — are glaringly hypocritical and in accord with his Islamist ideological bent. Erdogan has become sufficiently confident in the wake of his July 2007 electoral victory. His Justice and Development party, known as AKP, received 47% of the vote, enabling him to form a single-party government, and he has since sought to forge an Islamic agenda for Turkey. His actions reveal his intent to lead the Arab and Muslim East while gambling that the Obama administration and the European Union will ignore his Islamist rhetoric and his increasingly radical actions. Aside from becoming a champion of Hamas, he is charting a course towards a revival of Ottoman hegemony by restoring the seat and center of the Caliphate.

The United Arab Emirate-based online news source, The National, reported on June 15, 2010, that “Turkey embarked on the road to a ‘Middle East Union’ as an alternative to the European Union.” The National quoted from a front page article that appeared in the Turkish daily Milliyet regardingthe signing of a free-trade agreement between Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.

A speech given by President Obama before the Turkish parliament in April 2009, during which Obama declared, “Let me say this as clearly as I can: the United States is not and will never be at war with Islam,” encouraged Erdogan to ramp up his efforts. Erdogan, no doubt, is also counting on the European lack of moral courage. As such, he was able to provoke a crisis with Israel by funding and indirectly arming the flotilla that sought to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, and essentially call for jihad against Israel. Neither Obama nor the Europeans have rebuked him for his repeated egregious behavior. Moreover, Erdogan has derived a backwind from the vacuum created by the perception of weakness of the Obama administration, coupled with Obama’s toughness against Israel – the only democratic ally in the region – rather than towards Iran.

While Hamas has been pitied and cuddled by Obama, the Europeans, the UN, and human rights organizations, there has been no condemnation of the Turkish regime (nor, for that matter, against the Islamic Republic of Iran) by the US and the West for the continued war on the Kurdish people in Turkey, Iran, and Iraqi Kurdistan. According to a CNN-TV December 19, 2007 report, “the US helped in attack on PKK.” The ostensible reason for the war against the Kurdish people is the Kurdistan Workers Party’s (PKK) terrorism. Neither the Western powers nor the UN ever took Turkey to task over the lives of thousands of innocent Kurds killed in the process. And while the PKK might have used guerilla warfare against the Turkish authorities, unlike Hamas, it rarely employed suicide bombers or attacked civilians. The double-standard is apparent, Saudi petro-dollars helped to smooth the Arab-Palestinian image while overlooking its jihadist nature. At the same time, the friendless Kurds have no petro-dollar patrons to count on.

Western hypocrisy is quite apparent. While Hamas (1.2 million Palestinians) openly opposes Israel’s existence and has been dedicated, since its inception and as stated in its Charter, to the destruction of the Jewish State through war and terrorism, the PKK has been fighting Turkey since 1984. Initially they demanded a separate state for Turkey’s approximately 15-20 million Kurds, and later, were will to compromise and moderate their demands to cultural and political rights for Kurds. Hamas has received funds from EU countries and material support from EU based Non-Governmental Organizations. The British daily newspaper,The Independent,reported back on February 19, 2009 that “Europe began covert talks with Hamas.” No such privileges were accorded to the PKK or the persecuted Kurds of Iran, Syria, and Turkey. According to the Sabah-English edition of June 12, 2010, “Europe began staging war on PKK.” New provisions of EU anti-terrorism laws state that PKK terrorists residing in European nations will be extradited, and that Turkish police officers will receive special training on the extradition of terrorists. In addition, the EU Border Protection Agency (Frontex) is stepping in to curtail the PKK’s financial resources. Will the EU use the same parameters to deal with Hamas?

In using Erdogan’s logic that Hamas deserves recognition because it won the 2006 elections, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) deserves equal recognition following its successful showing in the 2009 local Turkish elections....